We are living in an age which is singularly poor in fine voices, both male and female, and with regard to the tenors of the present time there is this additional misfortune, that, as a rule, their voices do not last, but are often worn out in a very few years; in many instances while their owners are still under training, and before they have had an opportunity of making their appearance in public. If we remember that there was a time when most beautiful and highly cultivated voices were so plentiful that even in comparatively small towns there were to be found Opera Companies consisting of excellent singers, we may well ask ourselves how this remarkable change for the worse has come about. People have attempted to account for it in various ways. Up to the middle of the last century women were forbidden by Ecclesiastical Law to take part in Church music. The voices of boys being available only for a very short time, means were taken to prevent their voices from breaking, and thus a class of male soprani and contralti was created, who made their first appearance in Rome in the beginning of the 17th century, and to these singers the education of the female voices was soon almost exclusively entrusted. In the middle of the last century, however, when women were permitted to participate in Church music, there was no longer any occasion to procure artificial female voices, and these singers gradually died out, though there were still some of them living and teaching in the beginning of the present century. According to Rossini, who certainly was eminently qualified to give an opinion on the subject, the decline of vocal art in these latter years is mainly due to the disappearance of this class of singers, and if it be true that henceforth the training of female voices was undertaken by tenors, who, being of course unable to give a true pattern to their pupils, treated the female organ according to their own very different registers, then it can easily be understood that many voices must have been ruined by the process, and the scarcity of distinguished female singers would thus be satisfactorily accounted for. But I fail to see in what way the disappearance of male soprani and contralti could possibly have affected tenors and basses.
Again, it is asserted that the way in which modern composers write vocal music is the cause of the evil. Certain it is that in the compositions of the old Italian masters the voice is studied, and nothing introduced which is hurtful or disadvantageous. Awkward intervals are avoided, no fatigue is caused, and everything is eminently singable; but the music is not always expressive of the sense of the words, which were clearly considered to be of minor importance. With our modern (and especially with the German) composers, it is just the opposite, their chief aim being thoroughly to enter, not only into the spirit of their text, but even into the slightest shade, the minutest detail of it, so as to make the music, as it were, a translation of their words into a higher kind of language. What, on the other hand, is possible or impossible for the voice is, since the time of Beethoven, but rarely considered; many composers, even the most distinguished ones, having evidently little knowledge of the most beautiful of instruments, for which they are nevertheless continually writing.
When one of the greatest living masters introduced the harp into his works, he wrote for it just as though it were a piano—i.e., as though it were to be played upon with the thumb and four fingers. But it so happens that on that instrument the fourth finger is never used. Consequently, when it came to the point harpists could not play that gentleman's compositions: they had first to re-write them. Here the composer, of course, was found out immediately, and he or any other man would have the same fate if he attempted to write for an instrument the properties of which he did not fully understand. But with the human voice the case is different. Every musician believes himself to be competent to write for it, though he may possibly be wholly unacquainted with its many peculiarities. It is to be feared, therefore, that modern composers must be held largely responsible for the sad state of affairs concerning vocal art at the present time, and well might they learn a lesson from Mozart, who, in spite of his genius, first carefully studied the human voice, and then wrote for it.
Another explanation of the decline of singing is this, that the gradual and very considerable rise of pitch during the last 150 years is at the bottom of all the mischief, as the vocal organ is unable to bear the strain to which it is subjected. With regard to tenors, however, the great evil is, that with very few exceptions, such as the celebrated Frenchman, Roger, they disregard, or at any rate did disregard for a considerable period, the falsetto register, singing everything, however high, in chest voice. I am afraid it cannot be said even that they have been beguiled into this serious mistake by the imperceptible rise of pitch just mentioned, but the truth is that they have committed this fatal blunder knowingly and wilfully, because they saw that it would pay. In support of this statement I will quote a few lines from the publication called "The Opera and the Art of Singing," by Glogg-ner-Castelli:
"In the field of singing a new man arose, who, in spite of great personal attributes, worked destructively for the future, and whose influence upon the later manner of singing is seldom truly recognized. I mean the singer Duprez. Hissed off at first in Paris, he turned to Italy, where he stayed several years, and then returned to the French capital. When he came to use his magnificent vocal resources, as he did in the Fourth Act of Tell, where he brought out the high C in the chest voice with all the might of his colossal organ, it was all over with the fame of all his predecessors. Nourrit, till then the favourite of the Parisians, a distinguished tenor singer, recognized the rival's power. His day was over, and in despair over his lost and irrecoverable glory, he flung himself from an upper window upon the pavement, and so made an end of his life. Duprez may justly be considered one of the greatest dramatic singers of our time, and the main features of his method soon spread themselves all over Europe. After hearing of Duprez, and how the chest register could be cultivated even into the highest regions of the voice, the public were no longer contented with the use of the falsetto. Soon it became impossible to be engaged as an "heroic tenor" without at least possessing the high B♭ in the chest tone. The singers found it a more thankful task to humour the taste of the public than to pay extra regard to the intentions of the composer; for often Meyerbeer himself indicates, by a pp, his design that the falsetto and not the chest tone should be employed. That every tenor singer, whether such high pressure suited his natural compass or not, strove to screw his voice up and 'make effect' was very natural; for art goes after bread, and a high C with the chest voice often realizes an income of thousands to its fortunate possessor. Roger has made a laudable exception; his beautiful use of the falsetto certainly produces a more agreeable effect than the forced chest tones so unnatural to the organ of many a singer. How widespread is this mistaken notion, that the use of the falsetto is entirely contrary to art, we hear frequently enough in the expressions of individuals when some unlucky tenor happens to get caught on one of these tabooed falsetto tones. Thus the school founded by Duprez, important in itself, has called into life a manner of singing, the ruinous consequences of which we can see daily."
But whatever may be the true reason or reasons, the fact that we have very few singers of eminence as compared with former ages, and that vocal art in general has gone down, is undisputed, and men have set themselves to remedy the evil by trying to ascertain the actual process by which the voice is produced, thinking that if they could but find this out there would be a true scientific basis upon which to found a way of teaching singing—or as I should rather say, of training voices—which would be sure and unerring.
The experiments of the great physiologist Johannes Müller are well known, and they have been followed up by others. But they were made upon dissected larynges, and as various teachers of singing started the most conflicting theories as to how the process shown by Müller was carried on in the living subject, and treated the voices of their pupils accordingly, these investigations have perhaps on the whole done more harm than good. Science was made responsible for the blunders of those who attempted to be guided by it. And thus it has happened that when at a later period further trials were made, but this time upon the living subject, and in the act of singing, they were received with indifference and distrust. Only very lately teachers of vocal music have begun to find out that here are facts put before them which cannot be gainsaid, and that if these investigations do nothing else, they at any rate make them acquainted with the exact nature of the vocal organ, and what it will bear and what it will not bear.
"Physiologists," says Dr. Witkowski,[A] "are quite at issue when they endeavour to determine what kind of instrument the vocal organ resembles; indeed, Galien compares it to a flute, Magendie to a hautboy, Despiney to a trombone, Diday to a hunting-horn, Savart to a bird-catcher's call, Biot to an organ-pipe, Malgaigne to the little instrument used by the exhibitors of Punch, and Ferrein to a spinet or harpsichord. The last-named compared the lips of the glottis to the strings of a violin; hence was given the name Vocal Cords, which they have since retained. The current of air was the bow, the exertion of the chest and lungs the hand which carried the bow, the thyroid cartilages the points d'appui, the arytenoids the pegs, and lastly, the muscles inserted in them the power which tensed or relaxed the cords."
It must be admitted that the human voice bears more resemblance to a reed instrument than to any other; but when the comparison is pushed to its legitimate consequences it is found to break down. We cannot resist the conclusion that the vocal organ is infinitely superior to any instrument made by human hands. Its mechanism is so wonderful as to excite the profoundest admiration, and the more we continue to study it the more we marvel at the wisdom of the Divine Maker who planned it. I shall, therefore, speak of it simply as a wind instrument composed of—
| 1.— | THE BELLOWS. |
| Represented by the Lungs. Pl. I (Frontispiece), L. | |
| 2.— | THE WINDPIPE. Pl. I, w. |
| 3.— | THE VOICEBOX or LARYNX. Pl. I, v. |
| 4.— | THE RESONATOR. |
| Represented by (a) The Upper Part of the Throat, or Pharynx, pl. I, P; (b) The Mouth, pl. I, M; (c) The Nose, pl. I, N. |
| Plate II. | |||
| THE LUNGS | |||
| R. | Right Lung. | L. | Left Lung. |
| W. | Windpipe (Trachea). | ||
| V. | Voicebox (Larnyx). | ||
The top part of the left Lung is represented as partly cut away in order to show the ramifications of the Bronchial Tubes.
Plate III.
THE CHEST.
The Lungs are enclosed in the chest, which they fit exactly, and of which they occupy by far the largest portion, leaving but a small space for the heart. They consist of two halves (pl. II, R, L), each roughly resembling the upper part of a sugar-loaf somewhat flattened and hollowed out at the bottom. The left shows two and the right three distinct flaps or lobes. They are only connected by means of the windpipe (pl. II, W) and its branches.
The Chest (pl. III) is an air-tight chamber, which is narrower above than below. It is formed by the spine at the back, twelve ribs (pl. III, 1 to 11, the twelfth not visible on the drawing), with their inner and outer muscles on either side, the breast-bone (pl. III, B B) in front, the root of the neck at the top, and the midriff or diaphragm (pl. I, M) at the bottom.
The Midriff (pl. III, M) is a muscular and movable partition by which the lungs are separated from the abdomen. It is arched upwards like an inverted basin, but when its muscular fibres contract it flattens and descends, thus increasing the capacity of the chest at the expense of that of the abdomen.
The Function of the Lungs is, as everybody knows, respiration, which may be considered from a mechanical or a chemical point of view. In this little work we are only concerned with the mechanical part of the subject. If we examine the lungs of a calf, which are very similar to those of a human being, we find that they are soft and elastic to the touch, giving out when pressed a peculiar whizzing sound. We may increase their volume by blowing into them through the windpipe, so as to make them double their original size, and then tie up the windpipe. On re-opening the windpipe the air escapes, and the lungs are gradually reduced to their former bulk. Now, by drawing a deep breath we produce the same result in ourselves as by blowing into the lungs of the calf; by holding the breath we produce the same result as by tying up the windpipe—that is to say, we keep the lungs in a state of expansion; and by releasing the breath we are, as it were, untying the windpipe, leaving the lungs to dwindle down gradually to their former size.
There is one very material point, however, in which the analogy ceases. It is this: we keep the air in the inflated calf's lungs by tying up the windpipe, and the corresponding act in ourselves would be to hold our breath by muscular contraction of the outlet in the throat. This is precisely what we do in straining, and in lifting heavy weights, &c.; but it should never be done in breathing for vocal purposes. Here it must, on the contrary, be our endeavour to train, to the highest possible degree, the powerful muscles of the chest and of the abdomen, instead of throwing the labour intended for them upon the comparatively weak and delicate muscles governing the outlet of the windpipe.
To make the way in which respiration is carried on clearer still, I quote the following interesting and lucid account from Huxley's "Elementary Physiology," fourth edition, p. 104. He compares the breathing apparatus to "a sort of bellows without a valve," in which the chest and the lungs represent the body of the bellows, while the windpipe is the pipe; "and the effect of the respiratory movement is just the same as that of the approximation and separation of the handles of the bellows, which drive out and draw in the air through the pipe. There is, however, one difference between the bellows and the respiratory apparatus, of great importance in the theory of respiration, though frequently overlooked, and that is, that the sides of the bellows can be brought close together so as to force out all, or nearly all, the air which they contain, while the walls of the chest, when approximated as much as possible, still enclose a very considerable cavity; so that even after the most violent expiratory effort, a very large quantity of air is left in the lungs."
Respiration, consequently, consists of two acts—namely, inspiration and expiration. Inspiration may be produced in three different ways—(1) By pushing the chest forward and flattening the midriff, so as to compel the lungs to descend and to increase in volume in order to fill the empty space created by this movement; (2) by extending the ribs sideways; and (3) by drawing up the upper parts of the chest—namely, the collar bones (pl. III, C C) and the shoulder blades. In scientific works the first is called diaphragmatic or abdominal,[B] the second lateral or costal, and the third clavicular or scapular breathing. As, however, these terms convey no meaning to the general reader, I prefer to speak of—(1) Midriff Breathing; (2) Rib Breathing; (3) Collar-bone Breathing. In taking a full, deep inspiration, midriff breathing and rib breathing take place almost together and assist each other—that is to say, the midriff contracts and flattens, and immediately afterwards the ribs extend sideways; with this difference, however, that in men the action of the midriff takes a larger share in the work than the ribs, while in woman, on the contrary, the movement of the ribs is greater than that of the midriff.
By way of illustrating this curious difference of breathing in men and women, the following anecdote, which has the recommendation of being strictly true, may perhaps amuse the reader. Some time ago a troupe of "Female Minstrels," calling themselves, I believe, "The American Amazons," made a tour through this country. Their faces were blackened in the orthodox fashion, and they were in male attire, wearing tight-fitting garments of a peculiar kind. Two friends, both medical men, went to hear them (or perhaps to see them, I am not sure which), when Mr. A remarked that two of the performers were men. Mr. B did not see it, even when the individuals were pointed out to him, and asked his friend for the reasons for his opinion. "Why," said Mr. A, "I see it by their abdominal breathing!" And sure enough Mr. B now saw it too, and there was no mistake about it; for in the two suspected individuals the abdomen was evidently moving in respiration, while in all the others no movement was perceptible excepting that of their chests.
Plate IV.
DIAGRAMS ILLUSTRATING THE VARYING CAPACITY OF THE CHEST, ACCORDING TO THE METHOD IN WHICH THE LUNG IS INFLATED.
From Mr. Lennox Browne's "Medical Hints on the Production and Management of the Singing Voice," by permission of Messrs Chappell and Co.
The front outline A of the shaded figure represents the chest after full expiration; the black continuous line A gives the increase in size of the chest, and the descent of the diaphragm, indicated by the curved transverse lines, in full abdominal respiration. The dotted line C shows the retraction of the diaphragm and of the abdominal muscles in forced clavicular inspiration. The varying thickness of the line B indicates the fact of healthy breathing in a man being more abdominal than in woman. The outlines of forced inspiration in both sexes are remarkably similar.
The combined forms of midriff and rib breathing are the right method of inspiration, while collar-bone breathing is absolutely wrong, and should never be made use of. The reasons of this are not far to seek. The lower part of each lung is large and broad, while the upper part is cone-shaped, and very much smaller. It is self-evident, therefore, that by downward and sideways expansion (enlarging the lower part of the lungs) you will inhale a much greater quantity of air than by drawing up the collar-bones. This consideration alone should suffice to prove the utter falseness of collar-bone breathing. Collar-bone breathing has also the additional disadvantage of causing much fatigue, because all the parts surrounding the upper region of the lungs are hard and unyielding, so that a great amount of resistance has to be overcome (the "lutte vocale" of French authors), while the very opposite is the case with the lower part of the lungs.
Mr. Lennox Browne, who was, I believe, the first to direct the attention of English readers to this matter, says,[C]